User:Pigdogman123/sandbox

History
Hassenberg Bank was founded in Berlin in 1870 as a specialist bank dedicated to financing German commerce. Using capital contributed by patriotic Prussian nobles, it helped fund a generation of burgeoning industrial titans, including icons Siemens & Halske, Krupp and Bayer.

After growing steadily in the first three decades of the twentieth century, Hassenberg expanded rapidly in the thirties and forties, absorbing the operations of the German bank Mendelssohn & Co., the Bohemian Union Bank in Prague, Bankverein in Yugoslavia, Albert de Barry Bank in Amsterdam , the National Bank of Greece, and many other smaller competitors scattered across Eastern Europe. Although forced to separate into a series of regional banks following Germany’s defeat in the Second World War, Hassenberg quickly reconstructed itself under the leadership of chairman Hermann Schmitz, and, by 1960, had reclaimed all of its lost appendages and returned to its former strength.

Buoyed by West Germany’s spectacular recovery, the bank’s revenue increased substantially between 1960 and 1980, and it sought to broaden its reach, opening branches in every major city outside of the Soviet sphere of influence. As a condition of purchasing a stake in American investment bank Black Brothers Hart & Co. in 1991, U.S. regulators demanded Hassenberg jettison its private banking arm, prompting the sale of the division to Credit Suisse, which retained the Hassenberg Private Bank branding in Germany and Austria.

Hassenberg Bank continued growing strongly following the BBH acquisition, developing operations in retail banking, securities trading and mortgage lending before being absorbed into Deutsche Bank in 2008.

As a subsidiary of Credit Suisse, Hassenberg Private Bank provided wealth management services to high-net-worth individuals in Austria and Germany. The brand was discontinued following the forced sale of Credit Suisse to UBS in 2023.